Seeing its meddlesome presence in the Russian Federation coming to
an abrupt end with the return of Vladimir Putin to the highest office in the Kremlin; watching Ukraine succumb to Mother Russia's gravitational pull; watching Central Asian republics pledge an allegiance to Moscow; watching Georgians begin the gradual process of turning away from
Tbilisi's Washington-backed tie-eating dictator; and unable to stop the prosecution of Vartan Oskanian in Armenia,
Washington may finally be coming to the somber realization that their
destructive bullshit in former Soviet republics for the past twenty years may finally be coming to
an end.Commentaries and analysis produced by well known pundits and mainstream information outlets in Yerevan are presenting Oskanian's case as a simple matter of political infighting between the incumbent president of Armenia on one side and a former president (supposedly with renewed presidential aspirations), a restless oligarch and a repatriated diasporan official (i.e. Oskanian) on the other side. This is, in my opinion, somewhat of a misrepresentation or a half-truth of what is actually taking place. Domestic politics does naturally play a role in the political soap-opera currently playing-out in Yerevan, but so does geopolitics. In my opinion, Oskanian's plight in Yerevan is one of the many manifestations of the tug-of-war taking place in the south Caucasus between Russian Federation and the United States. It should also be added that had Moscow not been encouraging Armenia behind the political scenes, Yerevan would not dare touch one of Washington's most important men in Armenia.The fact of the matter is that Oskanian has been one of Washington's men in Armenia from the very beginning. Like Raffi Hovanissian and Paruyr Hayrikian, Vartan Oskanian was more-or-less sent to Armenia to represent Western interests in the fledgling state.
Due to Moscow's relative weakness throughout the 1990s, Armenian officials had
no choice in the matter but to allow these men to obtain various positions within the country.In a sense, these men were the human assets with which Washington seeded the Armenian political landscape hoping to reap benefits at a future time.This type of political seeding of course worked very well for a certain time period following the Soviet Union's collapse.

Similar to what their counterparts did in eastern Europe, the main task of Washington's men in Yerevan had been to facilitate the expulsion of Russia from Armenia. Their grand geostrategic plan - known in some circles as the Great Game - was to curb the political/economic growth of Russia (as well as that of Iran) essentially by turning the south Caucasus into one big Turkic-Islamic cesspool funded by a consortium of Western energy interests. This agenda is currently being pushed under the unassuming banners of "fighting corruption", "women's rights", "minority rights", "gay rights", "free speech", "free elections", "democracy"...

All of Washington's men in Armenia - some consciously, some unwittingly - continue to feverishly work on the Western agenda to remake the south Caucasus, similar to how their Arab counterparts have been working on remaking the Middle East. Needless to say, if allowed to take root, their agenda may prove deadly for the Armenian state.But we have been fortunate that in recent years we have witnessed a series of fundamental changes in the political climate of the globe. Most important of these changes has been the unexpectedly fast rise of the Russian Federation as a global power. Georgia's defeat in the summer of 2008 heralded Russia's splendid comeback. After reaping great benefits throughout Eurasia throughout much of the 1990s as a direct result of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic chaos brought upon by the Soviet Union's unexpected demise, Washington began suffering a series of setbacks in recent years. Moscow's resurgence during the last decade as an independent superpower pursuing its national interests on the grand chessboard of Eurasia has been one of the main factors behind Washington's setbacks.

The following is a brief look at some of Washington's most notable failures with regards to Eurasian geopolitics:

Its inability to stop the rise of Russia as a Eurasian superpower; its inability to stop the reversal of the political direction in Ukraine, Serbia, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia; its inability to stop Russia from liberating South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008; its inability to freely exploit Central Asian energy via Azerbaijan; its inability to setup anti-missile sites in Europe against Russia; its inability to stop the Russian-assisted nuclear development program in Iran; and its inability to, thus far, oust the Russian-backed Assad regime from power in Damascus...

There have been of course other major geostrategic failures such as Venezuela, Iraq and Afghanistan, but these are outside the scope of this commentary. Nevertheless, Oskanian's fall from grace is hitting cold-blooded reptiles in Washington very hard because it symbolizes empire's loss of influence as well as the loss of its fear factor.

Washington is finding itself increasingly difficult to persuade, bribe, brainwash, blackmail or threaten violence to get its way around the world these days. Since Armenia isn't one of those countries that can be bombed into submission (due to Russia's military presence there) and since NATO's two decades long economic blockade of the nation has proved ineffective (due to Armenian resilience), Washington is calling on their propagandists, many of whom are deeply imbedded in Armenian
society to bombard us with their bullshit instead. Utilizing its servants to spread disinformation inside Armenian society when political developments in Armenia don't go their way has been one
of their favorite methods of putting pressure on Yerevan and turning Armenia's Hollywood-struck peasantry, both in and out of the homeland, against their state.

Speaking of our Hollywood-struck self-destructive peasantry, I took the freedom of posting below this commentary several of the hastily produced Western articles in defense of Vartan Oskanian. Please read them to acquaint yourselves with their psy-ops and media blitz.Pay particular attention to the angry rantings of John Hughes, the horse-faced American agent in Yerevan who is also the director of the "independent" news organization known as
ArmeniaNow, and David Ignatius, the
thoroughly-assimilated-self-hating Armenian that has been on the
empire's
payroll for most of his life. It was particularly amusing to read Ignatius' comments in the anti-Armenian propaganda outlet known as the Washington Post. His handlers in Washington must have really rushed him because
Mr. Ignoramus'
diatribe against Yerevan is full of errors, not the least of which is
his misspelling of
the main object of his concern.

ArmeniaNow, Radio Liberty, EurasiaNet, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Hetq and of course the ARF's
Asbarez and Armenian Weekly are all
getting into the information war against Yerevan by defending one of Washington's main operatives in Armenia. Washington is clearly worried that its once powerful control levers in former Soviet states, including Armenia, are gradually
disappearing one by one. Therefore, by bringing out their army of propagandists and doomsayers they are attempting to pressure Armenian officials to fall back in-line, at the same time hoping to incite Armenians to rise against their leaders.

But times have begun to change. Their powerful methods of inciting the global sheeple with their psy-ops may no longer be working as well as it had been for the past several decades. Seeing
Washington-sanctioned crimes against humanity in places such as
Serbia, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran, political awareness, long
dormant, is slowly awakening in Armenians. Syria's bloody plight in
particular may have finally brought home to us Armenians the very uncomfortable truths of Washingtonian style politics around the world, and may be helping us to finally understand that Washington does not in fact care much about minorities... or gays... or women... or the ecology... or free and fair elections anywhere.

People are slowly beginning to understand that Washington's main purpose around the world has been to keep its declining empire intact at any cost. And with regards to Armenia, Washington's main concern is not the lack of "democracy" in Armenia but the lack of "America" in Armenia. The main purpose of Armenia's Captain America's has been to replace the Russian presence in the country with that of America's.

Guess what folks, it's not going to happen. That train left the station a very long time ago (it actually departed on October 27, 1999) and will not be returning anytime soon. Fortunately, the Caucasus is slowly yet surely headed towards Pax Russicana.

The good news is that Armenians are not the only ones awakening. Information technology is in fact helping the civilized world to reawaken from a deep slumber that back began in 1945.

Yes, the political climate of the world is gradually changing, a multi-polar global community is coming into existence and Washington and friends are looking awfully impotent as of late. But we cannot rejoice as of yet because the Anglo-American-Zionist alliance continues have a massive following of destructive zombies around the world; it continues to appeal to mankind's animalistic nature; it continues to control most global levers; and it continues to pack a lot of deadly poison.

Nevertheless, perhaps with some prodding from Moscow, the leadership in Yerevan seems to have negatively assessed Oskanian's political ambitions. Therefore, the process that has started against him should be seen as a preventative measure.Let us once again recognize the fact that the Caucasus is Russia's strategic and vulnerable underbelly and that Armenia is the
last Russian stronghold in the south Caucasus and one of the few reliable partners Moscow has in the world. Knowing the crucial importance of the Caucasus to a resurgent Kremlin, it should not come as a surprise that Moscow would be willing to lay waste to the entire region before it allows it to slip from its grip. Similarly, Moscow will turn Armenia up-side-down before it allows a Western-backed leader to take the strategic Caucasus republic out of Russia's political orbit.

Therefore, those trying to lure Armenia Westward are in fact playing with her life. Those who represent Western/Washingtonian interests in Armenia, despite their humanitarian facades, are dangerous and should be looked upon as traitors to the nation. In my opinion, bringing Oskanian
down before he got higher on the political ladder in Armenia was a very important preventative measure carried out by Yerevan and Moscow.

The following blog posts will help the reader place all this in better context -

Needless to say, many in our politically ignorant American-Armenian community today are foaming at the mouth over Oskanian's ordeal, and many are again enthusiastically readying themselves to cut Armenia out of their lives as a result of the supposed "persecution" of a repatriated official. However, those who are foolishly cheerleading for agent Oskanian and his Washington-funded-homo-centric Civilitas would do well to ponder the following instead:

Institutionalized corruption is rampant in the United States. The American empire is in fact one of the most corrupt political entities on earth and American society is slowly turning into a police state. Democratic elections, the kind of which Washington promotes around the world, has not existed in the United states for generations. And Washington continues to be the most warmongering and gluttonous political entity in existence today.

Knowing this, let's now ask ourselves the following questions:

Would Washington accept advise from others on how to run the American empire? Would Washington allow foreign entities to meddle in America's domestic affairs? Would Washington allow Chinese or Russian NGOs for instance to open shop in the US to encourage better governance in America's poor urban centers or on Indian reservations? Would Washington allow Cuba or Venezuela for instance to fund institutions in the US that advises American officials about social welfare? Does the US have politicians serving foreign state interests? Does the US have politicians on foreign payrolls?

The American empire is strictly a closed-circuit operation for all except British and Jewish officials and money men.

Knowing America's very strict exclusivity despite its very serious sociopolitical flaws and knowing that America became highly developed/wealthy essentially because of centuries of human exploitation, ethnic cleansing and global wars, why should humanity now be expected to unquestioningly accept Washington's self-serving meddling in developing nations going through natural growing pains? Why do so many Armenians mindlessly expect Yerevan to follow American dictates? Why are there so many Armenians willing to allow Washington to pursue its imperial ambitions in the south Caucasus via neo-imperialist institutions such as the IMF, USAID and the NED; meddlesome NGOs such as Civilitas; CIA front-offices such as Radio Liberty and ArmeniaNow; and human assets such as Vartan Oskanian and Raffi Hovanissian?

More important questions:

Does Huntsman Sr. really care so much about Armenia that he decided to donate over one million dollars to Oskanian's Civilitas in Armenia, or is the money in question intended to be used towards a Washingtonian political agenda instead? Why is there a Zionist Jew by the name of Peter Rosenblatt on the board in Civilitas, is it for the promotion of "democracy" in Armenia, or is it for the promotion of other agendas? Moreover, why was Oskanian so silent about "corruption" in Armenia when he was a high ranking official there? Finally, why did Oskanian closely ally himself to one of Armenia's most notorious oligarchs, was it for the promotion of "democracy" in Armenia, or was he simply being a political opportunist in Washington's service?

Folks, let's face it, Vartan Oskanian is clearly a
foreign agent in Armenia. Worst, he is Washington's agent in Armenia. In my opinion, Oskanian patiently played the game as foreign minister during Robert Kocharyan's presidency because Armenia at the time had not yet solidified its alliance with Moscow. He parted ways with Yerevan in mid 2007 when it became apparent that Serj Sargsyan would be president and Armenia would seek closer relations with the Bear. Under Serj Sargsyan's leadership Armenia has enjoyed very warm relations with Moscow and Yerevan has managed to institutionalize its very important military alliance with the Russian Federation. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that since stepping down from his position in Yerevan back in 2007, Oskanian has been openly towing a Washingtonian political agenda.

Therefore, recognizing Washington's agenda in the Caucasus (i.e. pushing Russia out of the region and exploiting Central Asian energy) and recognizing who are Washington's traditional allies in the region (i.e. Turks and Islamists), it can be rationally argued that Oskanian and the rest of those who are currently towing a Western agenda in Armenia are in fact traitors.

There is yet another troubling factor that needs to be addressed in this matter:By their actions men such as Oskanian are driving a deep wedge between Armenians of Armenia and Armenians of the diaspora. By their actions these types of diasporans are essentially continuing what Bolsheviks started - creating a deep schism in Armenian society. By treating Armenia as a political test-tube or an exotic playground for their wild fantasies, diasporans such as Oskanian are fast becoming a serious liability for the Armenian state. Several of the articles featured on this page are some examples of what I mean. Please visit their sources and read some of the diasporan nonsense posted in their comments section.

At the end of the day, Yerevan cannot allow Western imperialists to meddle in its domestic
affairs. In the big picture, Armenia's main problems are geopolitical and geographic in
nature. Armenia is going through very natural growing pains in a very bad political environment. Armenia must be
allowed a course to develop naturally and free of Western meddling. In other words, what Armenia needs is a sociopolitical evolution and not a Western funded revolution.Nevertheless, I have to admit that I'm encouraged by what I see in Yerevan.By
starting their case against Oskanian merely a week after the Whore of
Babylon's visit to Armenia last summer, Yerevan may have been signaling to Washington that there will be limits placed on overly ambitious or aggressive American operatives in Armenia. By taking such an action, Yerevan may also be signaling independence and confidence.Yerevan's message to Washington is - "your Arab Spring crap won't work here and if your operatives get out of hand we will without hesitation round them up."

Although what
is happening to Oskanian and his Civilitas is a good start and a good sign, Yerevan
needs to do more. Yerevan needs to monitor every single American/Western entity in existence in Armenia today, and it needs to keep a close eye on the many Western operatives currently operating throughout the country. Yerevan cannot relent in its efforts to immunize Armenia against the West because Western designs for the region poses an existential threat to the nation. The Caucasus is an unforgiving place. Ignoring this threat may in fact cause the young republic's downfall.

Despite its cleaver humanitarian packaging and hype, the political West today is a serious menace to world peace and stability,
and Western Globalism is a serious threat to apostolic
Christianity, western/European culture, indigenous cultures around the
world, the nation-state, nationalism and the family unit.

We must recognize the fact that financial, economic, political and cultural levers of control are being manipulated and exploited by the Anglo-American-Zionist global order. The
troubling realization that a very tiny fraction of human society
(virtually all based in the West) controls vast amounts of the world
wealth should be enough to scare any rational person. But as troubling as this all
is, the situation at hand is a bit more precarious for the Armenian state.Two of the geostrategic levers traditionally utilized by the political West, namely Turks and radical Sunni Islamists, poses an existential threat to the entire Caucasus. The manipulation of these levers by Western officials during the past two decades has led to the region's stunted economic growth and political volatility.

Thanks to Western meddling, the Caucasus is always one political disaster away from turning into a Turkic/Islamic cesspool.

Recognition of these characteristics of the region in which Armenia is unfortunately located in must serve to compel Yerevan not to take any chances with those representing Western interests in Armenia.

Yerevan needs to closely follow the Bear's
footsteps by limiting its ties to
Washington by curtailing its dealings with Western institutions. Yerevan needs to stop the operations of
Western-funded NGOs that involve themselves in political matters in the country. Yerevan needs to shutdown any news agency that maintains Western ties. Armenian
security officials need to keep a very close eye on any individual in
Armenia that has any connections to Western institutions. I hope Oskanian will be the first of many more Western operatives to be silenced in the future. Finally, Yerevan needs to disallow Armenians from the diaspora (particularly those from the United States) from serving in the nation's governing structures. I say this with a heavy heart because the Armenian diaspora in the United States could have been a great asset for Armenia.

Arevordi

October, 2012

***

Curtailing an NGO - and political debate - in Armenia

By David Ignatius

The campaign against
Western-backed NGOs is spreading to Armenia,
where a former foreign minister is accused of “money laundering” because
he accepted contributions from former U.S. presidential candidate Jon Huntsman to support civil-society projects. The target is Vartan Oskanian,
a U.S.-educated Armenian who served as foreign minister from 1998 to
2008 and then started a nongovernmental organization called Civitas. The
allegation is that Huntsman’s contribution of nearly $2 million,
described in detail on Civitas’s Web site, violates Armenian laws. (Web
links to the group’s site that were working early Friday were
inaccessible by mid-morning for unexplained reasons.)

At the heart of the case, according to analysts in Armenia, is
politics — and whether Armenia will have open, multiparty debates or
follow Russia back into Soviet-style authoritarian government. The
Armenian National Security Service has revoked Oskanian’s parliamentary
immunity, in what’s described by the local media as a prelude to
criminal prosecution. The move to prosecute Oskanian began after he allied himself in early 2012 with the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party
and then announced that he would not support a coalition with President
Serze Sarkisian and his ruling party. Sarkisian’s government has been a
solid ally of Russia; Oskanian is seen as more independent and
potentially pro-Western.

The legal battle in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, might seem like a
small sideshow on the world stage, but it illustrates an important and
worrying trend. In Moscow and other former Soviet capitals, NGOs are
being squeezed by the authorities, who see them as potential vehicles
for popular protest and political change. This month, Russia announced
it was expelling the U.S. Agency for International Development,
which has funded many Russian NGOs. A similar squeeze is evident in
Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Belarus, as well as in many Muslim countries,
such as Egypt and Pakistan.

The Civitas case is interesting in part because of the involvement of
Huntsman. The wealthy former Utah governor and GOP presidential
candidate has been an active philanthropist in Armenian since the 1988
earthquake, and he is said by Civitas to have contributed about $20
million to Armenian causes. When Huntsman International, a family
company, decided in 2010, to close its Armenian subsidiary, Huntsman
Building Products, the company directed in a written message that the
proceeds should go to Oskanian for the benefit of Civitas. The sale
produced about $2 million, of which $577,000 went directly to Civitas
and $1.4 million to Oskanian, for future distribution. (Oskanian said he
has already sent another $548,000 to Civitas, with the rest to follow.)

Civitas produces a newspaper and an Internet television news show,
which are independent voices in a country where most media outlets are
controlled by the government. Oskanian and Civitas have attracted
international donations, including government grants from Germany,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, the U.K. and the United
States. They have also received private grants from the Eurasia
Partnership Foundation and the German Marshall Fund (GMF). (Full
disclosure: I am a GMF trustee and have met Oskanian at several
international conferences.)

John Heffern, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, visited Civitas on
Wednesday, along with a group of European ambassadors, and then spoke
with a reporter from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Armenia service.
He called the move against the organization “troubling” and added:
“Civitas is a very important partner for us, and we think it’s really
important for Armenia politically and for the media.” Civitas has an
international advisory board that includes Stephen Bosworth, a U.S.
former ambassador who is dean of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of
Law and Diplomacy, where Oskanian took a graduate degree.

The decision to go after Oskanian and Huntsman, two prominent and
widely respected figures, is scary because it illustrates how far the
authorities are willing to go in the former Soviet republics in
curtailing debate. Just a few years ago, Russia and its former
satellites were brimming with civil-society projects and NGOs, whose
links to the West gave a cosmopolitan feel to once-dreary capitals of
the old Soviet empire. You can see a figurative door swinging shut in
the moves over the past year to suppress Western contamination — and the
freer political debate the NGOs have encouraged.

An attack on a former foreign minister of Armenia is threatening to shut down one of the country's most active and innovative non-profit
organizations. Vartan Oskanian, a U.S.-educated Armenian who served as foreign minister from 1998 to 2008, is being accused
by the Armenian government of money laundering for a donation he
accepted from the father (an American businessman and philanthropist) of
former U.S. presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr..

After leaving his post as foreign minister, Oskanian established The
Civilitas Foundation in 2008 in order to strengthen Armenia's civil
society. Since its creation, the foundation has received funding from
several Western governments, as well as the OSCE, a number of
international non-governmental organizations, and individual donors from
around the world. Jon Huntsman Sr. was one of these donors.

Huntsman Sr. contributed nearly $2 million to Civilitas in January
2011, and at the time, the Armenian tax authorities said nothing. In
May 2012, Oskanian was elected to parliament as a member of the
Prosperous Party on a platform of doing away with political and economic
monopolies. Two weeks later, the Prosperous Party announced it would
not join a coalition, a decision which Oskanian had championed. The very
next day, the National Security Service opened a criminal file on money
laundering and said that Oskanian and the Civilitas Foundation were
involved.

"It's hard to believe the timing was a coincidence," said Ophelia
Harutyunyan, who worked as a producer at CivilNet and is now enrolled in
the graduate film program at Columbia University.

On Tuesday, the Armenian Parliament will vote to seek removal of
Oskanian's parliamentary immunity, in order to charge him with
expropriating funds and money laundering. If convicted, Oskanian could
face four to 12 years in prison. With or without Oskanian's immunity
being removed and whether or not he is put on trial, the Armenian
government can also, at any time, freeze the Civilitas bank account and
office resources, essentially shutting down the foundation, putting over
60 people out of work, and putting an end to the many successful
development projects they have started in the country.

Most of Civilitas' employees are young adults who have been educated
abroad, who work tirelessly to strengthen civil society by hosting
debates, building libraries, and establishing microfinance development
projects, to name just a few initiatives.

"Civilitas has created a space for people like me to work and foster
positive change in Armenia," said Diana Muradova, an editor at
Civilitas. "Our country is facing hard socio-economic conditions and we
have a severe lack of adequate-paying jobs, but Civilitas has given more
than 60 educated people an incentive to stay here for development of
civil society and free media."

With few professional opportunities, many educated Armenians choose
to leave the country in search of work. In 2011, 43,800 people left the
country, 1.3 percent of the population. Since 2000, 236,200 people have migrated from Armenia, which is 7.2 percent of the population.

"What Civilitas represented for me was getting young, multilingual
Armenians to believe that change was possible -- that you didn't have to
leave Armenia for change to happen," said Greg Bilazarian, who worked
as a producer at Civilitas and now attends Yale Business School. "This
is going to severely hurt 60 people who have chosen to put their faith
and energy into something that could change their country. The next step
after that would be to leave the country. That's what we we're trying
to prevent."

In 2011, the foundation began to publish a daily newspaper and
launched CivilNet, a multilingual online news channel with funding from
the Huntsman donation. In a country where most media outlets are
controlled by the government, CivilNet is one of the only reliable
sources of information.

"We delivered a kind of journalism that most people hadn't seen
before in Armenia. We never covered stuff simply for ratings. We let
people work on stories that really mattered. It would be devastating if
anything were to happen to Civilitas, especially if it happened in the
name of politics to people who are not working for Vartan Oskanian to
get elected, they're working to better their civil society, for women's
rights, for the environment," said Bilazarian.

CivilNet was very active during the Armenian parliamentary elections
last May, producing videos of blatant election fraud, which the
prosecutor's office failed to investigate. If Civilitas is shut down,
the upcoming presidential elections will be covered mainly by media
organizations controlled by the government.

Full disclosure: I volunteered as a journalist at Civilitas for five
months in 2010. I was extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to
work with such a talented, hardworking group of people in a country
where inefficiency is the norm. As an Armenian American, not only am I
am involved in the process of civil society building in Armenia, but I
am also a member of the Armenian diaspora, which raises a lot of money
for Armenian charities. If Civilitas is shut down, it would be a giant
step backward not only in the fight for a less corrupt and more
democratic Armenia, but also for all the members of the diaspora who
work to make their motherland a better place, and for all those who
believe in freedom of the press.

Today’s National Assembly vote that potentially paves the way for
sending former Minister of Foreign Affairs Vartan Oskanian to jail is so
wrong, ill-conceived and ill-timed, it is hard to know which of the
legion of absurdities to address

At the top of the list should be one that seems to be of disturbingly
little concern to Oskanian’s colleagues who voted to strip him of the
immunity from criminal prosecution that comes as one of the perks
included in a parliament mandate. The vote was 64-6 with one invalid
ballot, and 58 members either absent from the vote or refusing to
participate, on grounds that the vote was a travesty.

Today’s vote again proves to the world that Armenia runs on thug-rule at the expense of democratic progress.

But
just a month ago and ever since, Armenia was embraced with
tragically-won sympathy when the “Safarov Affair” alerted the world to
the stark moral difference between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The latter’s
deification of a convicted murderer was ample evidence of why Western
democratic countries should stop treating the two neighbors with parity –
or with preference bought by Azerbaijan’s oil – and accept the
politically incorrect truth that Christian Armenia has a foundation for
democratic principle that is not in evidence in Muslim Azerbaijan. Now,
the “Oskanian Affair” shifts attention, and none of it is good.

Armenia’s KGB (calling the agency “National Security Service” may sound
less spooky, but doesn’t change who they are) says Oskanian hid money
that United States businessman Jon Huntsman, Sr. intended earmarked for
the Civilitas Foundation, founded by Oskanian.

ArmeniaNow has been told by sources familiar with the investigation
that, indeed, staff at Civilitas were asked to deposit portions of the
Huntsman money into personal accounts. It remains unclear, however,
whether Oskanian was involved in the alleged solicitations or whether
such transactions would constitute the fraud with which he is being
charged. In any case, investigators have not interviewed the Huntsman
family to clarify their agreement with Oskanian which, as one lawyer
pointed out today, would not require the NA voting on anyone’s immunity.

This is clear: If this former foreign minister goes to jail ahead of the
next presidential election, it will not be for money laundering -- just
as when his foreign minister predecessor, Alexander Arzumanyan, went to
jail ahead of the last presidential election on the same charges. In
each case – now laden with irony – the former cabinet members surfaced
from political upheaval on the wrong side of power, a matter more
politically perilous than whether or not they conveniently landed on the
wrong side of the law.

General Prosecutor Aghvan Hovsepyan said today that Oskanian will not be
arrested, nor will he be required to remain in Armenia during the
course of the investigation.

Last week Hovsepyan took extraordinary measures to tighten the screws on
Parliament Member Oskanian. But today, he says that citizen Oskanian,
whom the Prosecutor General’s office believes to have defrauded the
government in a $2 million scam is free to escape? If we believed
Hovsepyan last week, Vartan Oskanian is such a threat to society that a
rare act of Parliament should be invoked to assist in his prosecution.
Now, the nation’s top law enforcement officer is practically tossing his
suspect a “Get out of Jail Free” card? What sense does that make?

Yesterday Oskanian gave an interesting evaluation of the impact
arresting him would have on Diaspora relations, which may or may not
have prompted Hovsepyan’s odd announcement today. In effect Oskanian
asked this: “Are Diaspora now going to think that I was laundering money
for the 10 years (1998-2008 as Minister of Foreign Affairs) that they
trusted me?”

He also raised a valid point that the government needs his services now
as the Syria crisis rages, affecting tens of thousands of
Syrian-Armenians. Oskanian, himself, is from Syria.Those, however, are not the questions that a voting public would be
asking, were Oskanian to fulfill predictions and try to unseat President
Serzh Sargsyan next February, or would use his influence in Diaspora to
earn support for a candidate capable of doing so.

Vartan Oskanian is a statesman – duly experienced – who says he is ready
to come to his country’s aid, five years after he – through his failure
to do the right thing – almost helped destroy the republic he again
solicits to serve. “Where were you when we needed you?” is a valid question in evaluating
the veracity of the former foreign minister’s willingness to put public
good above political gain.

Oskanian, Minister of Foreign Affairs on March 1, 2008, should have
resigned his office that day, and in doing so proved himself above the
very sort of reckless, political-power-as-personal-weapon
decision-making that now has turned against him. But had he done so, he
would have found himself crosswise with then-president Robert Kocharyan,
with whom Oskanian now remains in favor as a member of the political
party created by Kocharyan.

Those of us who believed Oskanian represented a rare voice of reason –
or at least embraceable viewpoints -- in Kocharyan’s Moscow-controlled
administration, were disappointed to watch him collude in brutality –
“legitimizing” as one of his fellow party members now says of the
current prosecution/persecution of Oskanian, “an illegitimate act”.

On that Bloody Saturday, Oskanian’s special assistant, with whom he
would later found Civilitas Foundation, appeared on CNN to downplay
reports that the capital was coming unhinged. And when members of the
foreign ministry complained about the ministry being dragged into
Kocharyan’s crackdown that would lead to 10 deaths and hundreds of
injuries and arrests, Oskanian fired those staff.

To be fair: people would have died, property would have burned, the
thinning fabric of Armenian democracy would have suffered another rip,
no matter who headed the foreign ministry in the awful spring of 2008.
But on that day, more than on this one that brings shame to Armenia and
political martyrdom to Vartan Oskanian, we needed leadership that would
say “this is not right”, just as people today are saying so on his
behalf. We needed men like him to stand up by stepping down.

Oskanian didn’t. And his lack of guts on that day may have been
forgotten by the “concerned” Diaspora, “spyurkahye” celebrities and
foreign journalists who rally for him today, but it has not been
forgotten by locals. Foreign Minister Oskanian's failure to enforce
democratic principle may now be a blind spot in the U.S. State
Department's mirror, but it is a glaring spotlight for Armenians who
needed then, and now, courageous conviction.

It is near Shakespearean that Oskanian now finds himself on the same
wrong side that his predecessor in the foreign ministry, Arzumanyan,
found himself. Arzumanyan was jailed on charges which, like the Oskanian
case, were trumped up because he sided with those who sought to unseat
the existing regime -- at a time when Oskanian was part of that regime.

Some might call it karma. In any case, today's predictable outcome is a
pity. Everybody loses. Except those who will do this again when
necessary, because they know that they can.

On Thursday afternoon, Sept. 27, the General Prosecutor of the
Republic of Armenia, Aghvan Hovsepian, presented to parliament a
petition to strip Vartan Oskanian, a lawmaker and the Former Armenian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, of his parliamentary immunity. The petition
is slated to be discussed and voted on by parliament on Monday morning,
Oct. 1.

“This tells you how the government is using
its resources in the pre-electoral period,” said Ghazarian. “Civilitas
will go through all regular legal procedures until it reaches the
European Human Rights Court to prove that this case was a political
order since the beginning.”

Following the announcement, on Sept. 27, Oskanian’s lawyer, Dikran
Atanesian, stated that according to the regulations of the National
Assembly (NA) of Armenia, the president of the NA must inform the
parliamentary member about said petition, which didn’t take place. “This
is an obvious violation of law, and it confirms indirectly that this is
political persecution,” Atanesian said.

The petition is related to the criminal case of money laundering
filed by the National Security Service on May 25 against Oskanian and
the Civilitas Foundation of Armenia. The former foreign minister is
accused of “money laundering” because he accepted contributions from
American philanthropist Jon Huntsman, Sr. to support civil-society
projects. In the absence of other evidence, the prosecutor shifted his
attention from money laundering to expropriation, and now claims that
they are protecting Civilitas, the foundation Oskanian established, from
Oskanian himself.

On Sept. 28, the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) called the petition
“a political persecution not only against Vartan Oskanian, but also
against the Prosperous Armenia Party.” The party has lent its
unconditional support to Oskanian, a fellow party member, and has
pledged to achieve justice by all legitimate means available.

After serving almost 10 years as the Armenian Foreign Minister,
Oskanian in 2008 left office and established the Civilitas Foundation,
which dealt with democracy and development through education, media,
rural development, and environmental awareness, as well as several
projects on foreign relations advocating for peace and stability in the
Caucasus through dialogue and open intercourse. The foundation’s latest
project is the research- and news-based internet channel CivilNet.am,
which has been, throughout its one year of existence, vocally critical
of several political, economic, human rights, and environmental issues.
Last week, it won the Golden Key award of the Freedom of Information
Center in Armenia. Earlier this year, Oskanian had joined the PAP, which
is considered the most prominent opposition to the ruling Republican
Party; he was elected to the National Assembly on the party list last
May. Oskanian has made it clear that he would not support a coalition
with President Serge Sarkisian and his ruling party.

Al Jazeera today reported that the alleged charges are politically
motivated and aimed at stopping Oskanian from running in February’s
presidential elections. According to Salpi Ghazarian, the director of
Civilitas Foundation and a longtime confidante of Oskanian, the case is
no longer about Oskanian or Civilitas only. “This tells you how the government is using its resources in the
pre-electoral period,” said Ghazarian. “Civilitas will go through all
regular legal procedures until it reaches the European Human Rights
Court to prove that this case was a political order since the
beginning.”

In a show of international support, last Friday Oskanian hosted
ambassadors from various EU states, the U.S., and Brazil, as well as the
EU ambassador in Armenia, and representatives of the OSCE and Council
of Europe. Oskanian explained the accusations he faces, and presented
the necessary documents to rebuff those claims and charges. Domestically, most parties represented in the parliament declared
their support for Oskanian, including members of the radical opposition
Armenian National Council (ANC).

In a similar case in 2008, following the tragic post-election events
of March 1, four members sympathetic to ANC president Levon Ter
Petrossian were deprived of their parliamentary immunity and were
politically persecuted. Zarouhi Postanjian, a National Assembly member from the opposition
Heritage Party, in an interview with CivilNet.am, stated that the
process aims to target all those who think differently.

“Maybe this time they are feeling that danger from Oskanian,” she
said. “There are many ‘bright’ figures in the National Assembly, who
really need to be deprived of their immunity,” Postanjian added,
referring to the notorious tycoons in the country who were elected to
the parliament on the majoritarian lists of the ruling party.

U.S.
Ambassador to Armenia John Heffern says criminal charges filed
against former Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian are "bad for
justice and democracy in Armenia." Oskanian was summoned to the
National Security Service on October 8 and
formally charged with misappropriation of some $1.4 million donated by a
U.S. philanthropist to Oskanian's Yerevan-based Civilitas Foundation in
late 2010. Oskanian denies the charges, calling them politically
motivated and
aimed at derailing chances for his Prosperous Armenia party ahead of a
presidential election scheduled for February 2013. Heffern also
mentioned the timing of the charges against Oskanian were "troubling."
Heffern called on the Armenian government to "live up to its commitments
to the systematic, fair, and transparent implementation of the rule of
law."

The Vice-speaker of the Armenian Parliament responded to the US
Ambassador’s recent statement about Vartan Oskanian, saying that
ambassadors should refrain from politicizing legal issues and connecting
them with elections.

US Ambassador in Armenia John Heffern made a statement on Wednesday
related to the fact that the National Assembly stripped Prosperous
Armenia Party MP, former foreign minister Vartan Oskanian of his
diplomatic immunity and then was formally charged with money laundering,
saying that “it is bad for justice and democracy in Armenia”.

Ruling Republican Party spokesperson, parliament vice-speaker Eduard
Sharmazanov said in his interview to RFL/RL on Wednesday that “it is
impermissible and unrealistic to connect every legal process to
elections”.

“Naturally, I do not share the honorable US Ambassador’s opinion
expressed in his statement according to which ‘the case appears to
represent the selective application of Armenian law’, because this is a
purely legal matter. Our opinion is the same as before – it’s a legal
matter and politicizing or making it a party-related issue is
impermissible,” said Sharmazanov, pointing out that there are criminal
cases on a number of Republicans, who are either in custody or in
prison.

Heffern discussed the Oskanian affair with
PAP leader Gagik Tsarukyan in a private conversation on Wednesday.
Tsarukyan’s spokesperson Iveta Tonoyan reports that during the meeting
Heffern expressed a hope that the Armenian authorities will fulfill
their function and will ensure rule of law in dealing with this case.
Tsarukyan said that he will see to it that the case has unbiased
investigation and a just verdict is carried out.

“I have instructed the best lawyers to study the case which they have
done and have confirmed that all the charges brought against Oskanian
are groundless. During the party political board meeting I personally
instructed all the faction members to make strict, principle-based
statements and speeches,” said Tsarukyan.

The National Assembly of Armenia voted on Oct. 2 to remove former
Foreign Affairs Minister and Prosperous Armenia MP Vartan Oskanian’s
parliamentary immunity. Oskanian is being accused of money laundering in
what is widely perceived to be a political move to impede his return to
active politics.

Around the same time, activists from Armenia and the diaspora
gathered in New York and then in San Francisco and Los Angeles for the
Armenians and Progressive Politics (APP) Conference to discuss a range
of issues from foreign policy, to civil society development and the rule
of law in Armenia. While the presentations delivered at the conference
are yet to be made public, there was a clear call from many of the
speakers for the diaspora to be more active in the promotion of
democracy in Armenia.

Ironically, the two events couldn’t have coincided better. Two
decades on, the disconnect between independent Armenia’s realities and
the diaspora’s understanding of these realities is striking.

In the past 21 years, entrenched Soviet legacies of corruption and a
lack of respect for basic freedoms and fundamental rights have hindered
the democratization of Armenia. A strategic alliance with Russia, a
country that faces its own serious challenges when it comes to
democracy, has not helped. Some have even argued that the lack of a
peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict has allowed
Armenia’s rulers to cling to power and derailed democratization.

While the challenges for democracy to take root in Armenia have been many, the agents for change have been few.

Some external powers have tried to fill this role, yet have been
limited in their ability to drive true change. A case in point is the
impact Armenia’s integration into various European structures has had on
delivering internal change. Armenia undertook formal obligations to adopt democratic reforms as
part of its membership in the Council of Europe (since 2001), the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (since 1998), as
well as cooperation with the European Union particularly under the
European Neighborhood Policy starting in the mid 2000’s.

Successive Armenian governments embarked on a series of legislative
reforms in the judicial, electoral, human rights, and fundamental
freedoms spheres. Constitutional reforms were adopted, election laws
were reformed and refined time and again, and legislation relating to
freedom of assembly and media freedom, to name a few, were amended in
cooperation with experts from these organizations.

In practice, however, legislative reforms have failed to translate
into behavioral change. In what democratization experts call cost and
benefit calculations by governments, the potential threat posed by
putting these reforms into practice has surpassed any benefit that may
come out of implementing behavioral change. In other words, when it
comes to democratic reform triggered by external pressure, the ruling
elites in Armenia have talked the talk but failed to walk the walk.

In recent years civil society and non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) have emerged as potential change agents in Armenia. NGOs were
quick to mushroom in Armenia following the disintegration of the Soviet
Union. It has been argued that the Armenian NGO sector has been
influenced by the availability of funds from donors who have not only
played a role in shaping the issues raised but also the solutions
proposed, often resulting in a mismatch with the local context (see
Ishkhanian, A. Democracy Building and Civil Society in Post-Soviet Armenia, New York: Routledge, 2008).

While civil society in Armenia faces significant challenges, a number
of civic initiatives have been able to rally and maintain enough
popular support to register small successes. We have seen examples in
the fields of environmental activism (for example, the “Save Teghut”
initiative), domestic violence, and the protection of public spaces (the
campaign against the demolition of Mashdots Park).Some of these initiatives have also resonated with the diaspora. Such
was the case of the anti-domestic violence initiatives organized in the
U.S. following the murder of 20-year old Zaruhi Petrosyan, beaten to
death by her husband.

By and large, however, the diaspora’s involvement
in Armenia’s democratization has remained minimal.

There needs to be a deeper understanding in the diaspora of the
serious threats that corruption, the absence of rule of law and
accountability, and persistent violations of human rights constitute to
the long-term viability of the Armenian state. More than 20 years after
Armenia’s independence, it is high time for the diaspora to open its
eyes to these realities and reassess its role in bringing change to
Armenia.

What can we in the diaspora do? To begin with, we need to start talking about the serious internal
issues that threaten Armenia today. We need to start talking about them
not in a way that feeds into already well-established stereotypes, but
in a way that creates meaningful public discourse and seeks solutions.

Do we have a vision for Armenia? What is it? How do we get there?
These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves today as
individuals and communities. The imperative for internal reforms in
Armenia must become a topic of mainstream concern and discussion in the
diaspora if we are to find ways to affect positive change in the
country.

The structures and processes by which the diaspora can influence the
course of democracy in Armenia is a topic that warrants serious
discussion and one we are yet to start. However, in trying to bring
change to Armenia, the diaspora can find an important ally in civil
society. A generation of young and motivated Armenians who want better
for their country exists in Armenia today. Let’s reach out to them,
learn from them, empower them. They may become the country’s next
leaders.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of an
independent Armenia, the priority for the diaspora was to provide
immediate relief to an impoverished country devastated by an earthquake
and a protracted war. Now it is time for the diaspora to re-consider its
priorities in Armenia and act as a much needed agent for change in the
country.

Houry Mayissian is a communications professional with journalism and
public relations experiences in Dubai, Beirut, and Sydney. She has
studied European politics and society at the University of Oxford,
specializing on the democratic reform process in Armenia as part of its
European integration.

My next trip to Armenia is in December, but if it were tomorrow, I
wouldn’t be very excited to get on the plane. In fact, right now I want
to be as far away from Armenia as possible. And in this moment, I
understand why hundreds of thousands of people have left during the last
20 years.

Currently, Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s former minister of foreign
affairs, faces charges of money laundering, embezzlement, and who knows
what else. Many people thought Oskanian a likely challenger to
Republican incumbent President Serge Sarkisian in February’s
presidential election, unless, of course, Oskanian is tied up in court,
or worse. Seemingly to correctly prove the hypothesis that the charges
are politically driven, the ruling Republicans and their de facto proxy
party voted 64-6 to remove Oskanian’s immunity and leave him open to
charges, which followed a week later. Every political party boycotted
the vote except, you guessed it, the ruling majority and its friends.
Interestingly, a party historically loaded with parliamentarians
sporting shoddy attendance records somehow managed to convince 96
percent of its membership to show up and remove Oskanian’s immunity.
Meanwhile, Georgia just completed a legitimate election and power
transfer, further widening the democratic gap between the two
neighboring former Soviet states. And yet, this isn’t even the beginning
of my frustration…

Oskanian is also the founder of the Civilitas Foundation, a think
tank promoting an active civil society. The money laundering charge
stems from a charitable donation made to the foundation by U.S.
businessman Jon Huntsman, Sr. The foundation’s roughly 60 employees are
predominantly young, multilingual Armenians working to improve their
country by focusing on issues such as women’s rights, the rule of law,
and the environment. Their main vehicle is the news and public affairs
website, civilnet.am, which started from scratch with a team of
inexperienced future journalists, and has since developed into a real
source for independent, analytical news and dialogue. Unfortunately,
that mission sometimes interferes with the establishment’s suppressive
interests. During my 14 months producing for Civilnet, I learned twice
as much as I taught about advocacy journalism and became exceedingly
optimistic about Armenia’s future. Civilitas is an oasis for
free-thinking creativity, safe from the desert of anti-progressive
thought that sometimes pollutes Yerevan.

This all matters because the Armenians with whom I worked at
Civilitas are extremely talented and mobile. They’ve turned down
full-scholarship opportunities in the U.S. and the U.K., believing they
could improve their home country if they only stayed in Armenia. Even
those who have left Civilitas and Armenia, including U.S. citizens such
as this article’s author, have pledged to return and make Armenia their
long-term home. But now, Civilitas is under fire, facing potential
interference from the government, which claims it wants to “protect”
Civilitas. Nobody knows what that means and nobody is optimistic about
it either. While everyone is still fighting for Civilitas’ survival,
some of my former co-workers and friends are second-guessing their
desire to remain in Armenia.

At September’s Armenians and Progressive Politics (APP) Conference in
New York, one attendee astutely described Armenia as an unstable
balloon that inflates with each repressive event, such as the one
happening now with Civilitas. But as the balloon expands and seems ready
to explode, people simply move out of the country, thus diffusing the
pressure. We’ve seen it after elections and other events that sully the
public. It’s why today Armenia’s population is definitively less than 3
million people. So I suspect we’ll see more frustration and migration
with this episode and the upcoming February election. And,
unfortunately, the educated and mobile will be the ones to leave,
further exacerbating the brain drain epidemic.

I will get on that plane in December, and my long-term plan to live
in Armenia has not changed. I am excited to enjoy the city I love and
see the friends I left behind a few months ago. I only hope some of them
will still be there to greet me at the airport.

Greg Bilazarian is a first year MBA student at the Yale School of
Management. He was the producer for civilnet.am in Armenia from May
2011 to July 2012. Bilazarian worked for four years as a television news
reporter in the U.S. before moving to Armenia. He grew up outside of
Philadelphia.

‘Armenia at 21’ Conference Brings Together Activists from Armenia, Diaspora

Armenian-American activists and community members converged at
Columbia University on Sept. 28-29 to attend this year’s installment of
the Armenians and Progressive Politics (APP) Cconference, dedicated to
“Armenia at 21.” The conference featured 30 experts, activists, and academics from
Armenia, Europe, South America, and the United States who addressed
topics on the environment, foreign policy, economy, civil society
development, and rule of law. “This was a unique opportunity for grassroots activists from Armenia
and the diaspora to exchange ideas and strategies to affect change in
the Armenian polity. Looking at 21 years of Armenian statehood, they saw
how far we have come but also how far we must still go along the entire
range of social, political, ecological, and economic issues,” said Dr.
Dikran Kaligian, the chairman of the conference organizing committee. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and war correspondent Chris Hedges
spoke at the opening session on Sept. 28. Sarah Leah Whitson, of Human
Rights Watch, and Arpine Galfayan, of the Institute for Democracy and
Human Rights in Armenia, offered comments. Seven panels were held the
following day. The Armenian Weekly will provide detailed coverage of the conference and publish some of the papers in the coming weeks.

Ambassador Djerejian: An Illustrious US Diplomat Tarnishes Own Reputation

On Friday October 5 Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian presented a
lecture in Los Angeles titled “Arab Awakening, The Turkish Role in The
Region and The Future of Armenians in the Middle East”. Nearly 500 Armenian Americans attended the event organized by Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) Asbeds.

Holding himself true to his principle “as a diplomat to think twice
before saying nothing,” Amb. Djerejian talked for over 50 minutes
without making important revelations on the current situation in the
Middle East and Syria in particular. He went on to narrate the
situation in the Middle East by delivering certain details with
eloquence, mesmerizing his audience. He also shared anecdotal stories
during his tenure as US Ambassador in Syria.

However on the 56th minute as he shifted his focus to the Caucasus
region, he dropped the nuclear bomb on his Armenian American audience
when he claimed that 2014 is a potentially deadly deadline for Armenia
and Armenians worldwide imposed by Azerbaijan. He sternly cautioned
Diaspora Armenians about the so-called “Azerbaijan deadline” for
political settlement of the Artsakh (Karabagh) conflict by 2014 “or
else” face the dismal possibility of a new war. He tersely warned that a
formidable military buildup by Azerbaijan spelled trouble for Armenia,
and that the war this time “may not be as favorable” to Armenians as the
first war. Many members of Southern California Armenian American
community were concerned with his promotion of fear among Diaspora
Armenians on the ‘dire’ consequences of a new war with Azerbaijan.

His lecture also agitated several members of the audience who were
disturbed by his pro-Azeri claims that Armenians are ‘occupying’ lands
that “belong” to Azerbaijan.

Before making such anti-Armenia and anti-Artsakh declarations, that
the lands around Artsakh (Karabagh) are ‘occupied’, Amb. Djerejian
should investigate for himself the true identity of the territories in
lower Artsakh (Karabagh). His research will reveal the undeniable fact
that the borders of Armenian Territory of Artsakh encompassing both
mountainous and lowland Artsakh run from western border of contemporary
Armenia to Kura River to the east of mountainous Artsakh; and from
Gantsak (“Gendje” under Azeri rule) just north of Shahumian in the north
all the way to the current Iranian border in the south.

Under infamous Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, the Territories of
Artsakh and Nakhitchevan were carved out of then newly Sovietized
Republic of Armenia and were ‘gifted’ to then newly sovietized
Azerbaijan in early 1920’s thus completing ‘stalinization’ of Armenian
territories. Artsakh Liberation War of 1988-1994 facilitated the
reversal of that process which can be appropriately labeled
‘de-stalinization.’

He also underlined how Turkey is fast-becoming a regional super
power. Then he expressed support for Armenian-Turkish reconciliation and
normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey with “honorable
terms” for Armenians on critical issues. But he did not elaborate on the
issues. For a moment the former U.S. Ambassador sounded more like an
Ambassador of Azerbaijan or Turkey rather than a veteran diplomat
representing United States as an honest broker in Caucasus.

During the question-and-answer period, they caught him off-guard by
presenting pointed questions such as whether Armenians in Artsakh should
pursue or give up self-determination as opposed to capitulating to
Azeri demands to settle for autonomy within Azerbaijan. The parade of
inquisitive and intelligent questions reflected deep Armenian-American
concerns for Armenia and Artsakh as Amb. Djerejian backtracked and
modified his position to come across as a more ‘balanced’ diplomat.

Amb. Djerejian pointed out the proliferation of “ism”s such as
“extremism” and “terrorism” in today’s world. Interestingly, his
position on vital Armenian American issues has illustrated that he is
influenced by petroleum interests, and is an adherent of “petrolism.”

A well-respected writer and political observer David Boyajian of
Belmont, MA recently wrote: “Djerejian, whose parents were Genocide
survivors, is a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Syria. He is now
the Founding Director of the James A. Baker III Institute in Houston.
The Institutes namesake is James Baker. He is a former Secretary of
State and an Armenian genocide denier, as is Madeline Albright, an
ex-officio member of the Institute. Its Board of Advisors is filled
with current and former executives of Chevron, Marathon Oil, Shell Oil,
Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and similar corporations,
several of which also fund the Institute.

Not surprisingly, human
rights are nearly invisible on the Institutes agenda. In a depressing
political presentation to Armenian Americans in Texas in 2011, Djerejian
uttered not one word of criticism of Turkey or Azerbaijan. Nor did he
mention Artsakh/Karabagh’s rights, human or otherwise. Instead, he took a
neutral position on the issue, and approvingly quoted Azeri President
Ilham Aliyev that ‘Azerbaijan has the upper hand.’ Regarding the
Genocide, Djerejian noted only that ‘the Armenian Genocide can best be
resolved within the context of improved state to state relations between
Armenia and Turkey.’”

As noted above, ironically, many of Amb. Djerejian’s comments were echoes of his own remarks of 2011 in Texas.

Similarly, the following comments that were presented in 2011 in
Texas are almost identical to his observations made in Los Angeles:
“Armenia must look at current trends in the region. The Russian-Georgia
conflict destabilized the Caucasus region and beyond. Russia is
asserting itself in the “near abroad.” While Armenia’s relations with
Russia will remain very important, Armenia must avoid becoming
over-dependent on Russia. Turkey is looking westward, seeking to be part
of the European Community, while strengthening its ties in the Middle
East and Central Asia and improving its relationship with the United
States. Georgia and Azerbaijan are actively pursuing stronger relations
with the West. Iran’s future direction remains problematic, but it is a
major regional player. Increasingly, change in Iran is not a question of
if, but of when.

Iran’s policies will have important implications for
Armenia, a neighboring border country. Armenia’s relations with the
United States are very important and involve interaction on issues such
as non-proliferation and border security, international narcotics, money
laundering and the trafficking in persons, and the development of
democratic institutions and sustainable economic growth. Washington also
appreciated Armenia’s support in Iraq. Thus, the promise for Armenia’s
security and prosperity rests with following the major trends toward
regional and international integration. Armenia can no longer risk being
“the odd man out.” Indeed, Armenia should rediscover and reaffirm its
historic role as a bridge between the North and South, and the East and
West.”

While sounding genuinely concerned with Armenia’s and Armenians’
future, Mr. Djerejian trashed Armenia’s performance as a viable state. Under succeeding US administrations of the last few decades, U.S.
State Department has been siding with oil-producing dictators such as
Pres. Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan at the cost of trampling upon the human
rights of people like Armenians of Artsakh (Karabagh). By doing so, US
administrations risk exposing themselves to the ire of international
public opinion in Middle East, the Caucasus and elsewhere.

Abundance of social and diversified mass media has helped the masses unmask this American double standard. It is obvious that he is not a champion of human rights for Armenians
of Artsakh. But he could have at least steered clear of making
anti-Artsakh (Karabagh) Armenian pronouncements by respecting his
diplomatic rule of ‘thinking twice before saying nothing;’ and by
declining to unfairly agree with Azeri false claims that Armenians “are
occupying” lands in Azerbaijan.

Ambassador Djerejian noit only did not alleviate Armenian American
concerns on U.S. State Department being a dishonest broker in Asia Minor
and Caucasus in regards to Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Azeri issues,
but he also ended up tarnishing his own reputation as an illustrious US
Diplomat.

It is being reported that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin - the living legend - is expected to travel to Armenia an official visit in the coming weeks. The last time the great leader of the Russian Federation traveled to Armenia was back in 2005. The trip back then was very brief and barely noticed. It was widely thought at the time that the trip's purpose was to ensure Armenia's political allegiance to Moscow. Having finally crushed Russia's Western-backed oligarchy and defeated the Western-backed Islamic insurgency ravaging the Caucasus by the early years of the new millennium, Putin's 2005 visit to Armenia was coming at a pivotal time in history when Moscow was just beginning to get off its knees and reasserting itself in regional politics. It certainly feels like that was a very long time ago. Times have certainly changed and this time around the trip and its geopolitical implications will be a quite different.

Yerevan does not need to be convinced of Russia's crucial role in the region anymore. The Great Czar of Eurasia will be in Armenia to build on the foundations he laid back in 2005. Putin will be in Armenia to bolster the small, landlocked and blockaded nation's political standing in the south Caucasus and to further cement bilateral relations between the two former Soviet nations. I hope to see powerful political symbolism to be on display during the historic visit. Naturally, I also expect Washington to bring out many of its street whores to spread fear, hate and disinformation. I can hear our Captain America's now - "Armenia is losing its independence"... "Armenia is being taken over by Russia"... "Armenia is being forced back into the Soviet Union"..."Armenia is a dirty Russian province"... "Armenia is being enslaved by Putin"... Regardless of what our Western-led self-destructive peasantry will say or do, the Armenian nation will be deeply honored to host an illustrious leader like Vladimir Putin on Armenian soil. Although many millions of people around the world today have begun recognizing his crucially important role on the international stage, Putin's true greatness will be recognized only after he departs this world, when future generations look back and rationally assess the turbulent times we are currently living in. Men like Putin come about very rarely. In fact, pivotal leaders like him appear during times of great upheaval. The great leader of the Russian Federation was indeed born under a very bright star.Coming on the heals of the unprecedented CSTO military exercises in Armenia, Vladimir Putin's appearance in Yerevan will be another very powerful message to Turks, Azeris and Western officials alike. In the aftermath of his historic visit, I hope to see deeper cooperation and collaboration between Yerevan and Mosow in all realms, be it business, military, political, financial, cultural or tourism. Moreover, I'm also hopeful that his visit will serve to boost President Serj Sargsyan's ratings. In short, I expect to see a few breakthrough developments. Interestingly, one such breakthrough has already been revealed.

Current Gazprombank vice president and former Yerevan mayor Karen Karapetyan will be accompanying the President of the Russian Federation.

When Karen Karapetyan prematurely vacated his short-lived position as mayor of Yerevan to assume a high level position in the Russian Federation, there were some rumors that Moscow was temporarily pulling him out of the political muck in Yerevan to groom him for the Armenian presidency. It is now being reported that Yerevan is preparing to offer Karapetyan a position as Prime Minister. Apparently, this is due to happen after the next presidential elections in Armenia in which President Serj Sargsyan is expected to win another five year term. If this report holds true, there is a very good chance that Karapetyan will be a presidential candidate in 2018. Karen Karapetyan is an ideal manifestation of today's Armenia and Armenia's Soviet past. He is an example of a person that has drawn the best from both worlds. The man is well-educated, professional, wealthy, has stage appearance and, very importantly, he has very good connections in Moscow. He is an excellent example of what Armenian-Russian relations can be and should be. He is definitely not one of Armenia's 1990s era derived criminally-inclined-chobans-in-Armani-suits, nor is he one of Washington's many whores infesting the streets of Yerevan today. In my opinion, Karen Karapetyan would make an great president in Armenia. If he is in fact being groomed for the Armenian presidency, and I can only pray that he is, this means Moscow is taking Armenia's security and long-term political stability very seriously indeed. Putin's state visit and Karapetyan's reappearance within the political scene in Armenia are in my view some of the best political developments that have come out of Armenia in recent years. I'm very glad that Moscow is finally making its presence felt in the south Caucasus.

After a long period when Moscow's dealings with Yerevan were more-or-less confined to behind-the-scenes negotiations, we are now seeing Moscow get noticeably proactive - and public - inside Armenia of late. Although it seems a bit awkward, we are indeed seeing Western-style Public Relations (PR) coming from the Russian camp recently. Perhaps having learned dearly from the methods with which the political West sometimes gets things done around the world (i.e. before Western leaders resort to blackmail, sanctions, terrorism or war when things don't go their way), Moscow has clearly begun using an effective tool known as "Soft Power" as a means of promoting and projecting its political agenda as well. But Moscow has a very long way to go before it can truly compete with the West in this regard.

Since the rise and fall of Bolshevism and National Socialism, the Anglo-American-Zionist global order has managed to monopolize the PR market, and it has been exploiting it with deadly effect around the world ever since. In a sense, the political West became a "global leader" more-or-less by default. And by a psy-ops assault they conquered the hearts&minds of humanity. Several generations have now lived and died under a global "reality" crafted by Western officials. Nevertheless, what Kremlin officials have begun doing in recent times is a good beginning.

For much of the past twenty years Moscow executed politics in Armenia via traditional/conventional methods - disregarding the base and simply dealing directly with high level state officials and using strong arm tactics when need be. Such an approach is of course a lot less complicated and a lot less costly for Russian officials. However, such an approach also left a serious void. Because the top leadership in Yerevan were essentially spoken for, Western interests simply began working on the rest of Armenia, the bottom half if you will. Exploiting the services of an army of operatives, NGOs, Think Tanks, aid agencies, various USAID funded programs and western-style television programing, Washington began its efforts to hijack the fledgling nation from the bottom up. Therefore, Moscow's most serious flaw in Armenia had been its severe lack of PR in the country.

It could also be said that Kremlin officials, pressed with a multitude of serious problem throughout the Russian Federation, took Armenia somewhat for granted. After all, Kremlin officials were confidant that Armenians have historically been pro-Russia. After all, the Kremlin knew that Armenia is surrounded by enemies. Therefore, as far as Kremlin officials were concerned, where was Armenia to go? Needless to say, this flaw in approach (although understandable in the light of serious problems Russia faced during the past two decades) was exploited by others. The void created by the absence of Russian PR and soft power in Armenia was ostensibly filled by Washington and friends.

From television programming to the young republic's educational system, from aid agencies to news outlets, Western propaganda soon began permeating Armenian society. The youth, particularly those who did not live during Soviet times were most susceptible to the corrosive aspects of Western Globalism. To put it as briefly as possible, with the void that Russia had left in Armenia, Armenians simply woke one day to see that: Washington had built the world's second largest US embassy in Yerevan; English had begun replacing Russian as the second language in the country; and most of the nation's opposition leaders, rights advocates, political activists and independent journalists were on Western payrolls...

Having already lost Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Kremlin's indifference or inability to cultivate its playing field in Armenia could have in fact cost Russia the entire south Caucasus, and may have even cost Armenia its independence. Although much of the danger posed to Armenia by the West and its allies in the region has been dissipated in the years following Russia's bloody pummeling of Georgia in 2008, significant threats still remain.

The mental/psychological conditioning of the masses through Western-controlled aid agencies, information media and entertainment indistry, for instance, continues to pose a serious problem. For instance, the conditioning of Armenians in particular have been so thorough that despite how well Russia provided for or protected our small, poor, landlocked and blockaded nation surrounded by hostiles in the south Caucasus, Armenians (diasporans in particular) found ways to be suspicious of Russians and to bad-mouth Moscow. And despite how terribly Armenia was treated by the West, Armenians always found ways to compliment Washington and make convenient excuses for its anti-Armenian policies.

Seeing a nation that sustains you as an enemy and seeing an enemy that wants you destroyed as a friend is essentially what Western propaganda and psy-ops has been all about.

As Russian officials were scrambling to save their nation from literally falling apart, the immense power of propaganda was basically neglected by Moscow - to its detriment. Nevertheless, despite the West's massive and highly refined propaganda machine that for decades created alternative realities and stupefied and zombified masses of people around the world, the veil is now slowly lifting as more-and-more of us mortals see the bloodthirsty demon well hidden behind the humanitarian mask. The political West is in decline and reptiles in places such as Washington, Wall Street, London and Tel Aviv are worried about losing their iron grip over humanity. This is essentially the reason why the world today is standing dangerously close to a Third World War.

In this regard, Vladimir Putin's rise to power in the Russian Federation a little over twelve years ago was God sent; perhaps literally. Some point to the Stock Market crash and some point to the Housing Market crash to explain Washington's descent. In my humble opinion, the West began its historic decline when President Vladimir Putin took office in Moscow.

I dare any well informed and/or rational individual to imagine where Armenia would be today had Russia been pushed out of Armenia in the 1990s. I dare any well informed and/or rational individual to imagine where the entire Caucasus would be today had Russia been defeated there. I dare any well informed and/or rational individual to imagine how much worst the situations in the places such as Syria, Lebanon and Iran would have been had Russia been eliminated from the global stage. Russia's resurgence as a global power not only saved Armenia by stopping the Caucasus from turning into a Western-financed playground for Turks, Azeris and Islamists, it also saved the world from the clutches of the Anglo-American-Zionist global menace.

A good look at Moscow's brilliant political maneuverings in recent years can be observed in the paranoid rantings of a self-hating Iranian named Amir Taheri and in the diatribe by the infamous Heritage Foundation. The New York Post article titled "Putin's Power Plays" and The Foundry's "Obama’s “Reset” with Russia: A Long Retreat" are featured at the bottom of this page. Please read them. But, as always, I need to caution the reader that such works need to be read between-the-lines because they are written by Washingtonian presstitutes.

And a good look at the Russian PR taking place in Armenia lately is the Pravda article titled "Russia protects Armenia from Western influence" posted towards the bottom of this page. Armenian news has been saturated lately by coverage of various developments pertaining to Russian-Armenian relations. The Pravda article may be a form of Russian psy-ops coming ahead of the great leader's visit to Armenia. Having finally rid Russia of its Western parasites (e.g. Jewish oligarchs, IMF, homosexual activists, USAID, Pussy Riot, NED, Radio Liberty, etc), Vladimir Putin may be planning on doing similar things in Armenia. In the big picture, Vartan Oskanian's prosecution should be looked at under this light. As Russia grows in strength and the West retreats from the Caucasus, we can expect other misbehaving operatives such as Raffi Hovanissian to eventually be chased out of Armenia as well. Armenia's only hope for progress and survival in the south Caucasus lies with closer integration with the Russian Federation. Armenia's most important diaspora is the Russian-Armenian diaspora. The only hope the Caucasus has for peace and stability is Pax Russicana. I have always maintained that if law and order was to ever descend upon Armenia it would have to come by the way of Moscow. I have always maintained that the only way Armenia would enjoy some semblance of a normal statehood is by the way of men such as Karen Karapetyan. Having taken some twenty years to get its act in order, a resurgent Moscow is now strongly invested in Armenia and it is displaying it for the world to see. Vladimir Putin's visit to Armenia promises to herald a new age in the south Caucasus.ArevordiOctober, 2012

***

Vladimir Putin to Visit Armenia

The Armenian Time reported that the Russian President Putin's
visit to Armenia will perhaps take place at the end of October or at the
beginning of November. Putin's visit to Armenia was initially planned
in September, during the CSTO exercises. The Russian ambassador to
Armenia said a few days after the exercise that Putin's visit to Armenia
is still due. Now the visit will be either at the end of October or at
the beginning of November. According to the sources of the newspaper,
the Russian delegation to visit Armenia is being formed by the ex-mayor
of Yerevan Karen Karapetyan, the vice-president of Gazprombank. During
the visit, Karen Karapetyan's appointment as prime minister of Armenia
will be discussed. Governmental sources report that the prime minister
will be replaced only after the presidential elections. Otherwise only
in case no agreement is reached with Prosperous Armenia on this matter.
In other words, if Serzh Sargsyan does not get PAP's support for his
nomination, he will have to change the prime minister before the
elections. Then, Karen Karapetyan will need crisp and clear guarantees
that he will keep his office even after the presidential elections.
Yesterday, Russian media reported that Vladimir Putin's visit to Turkey
was postponed. It was planned to be held on October 14-15, while the
Russian president meant to leave from Ankara to Baku. According to
Russian media, yesterday, Putin and Erdogan spoke on the phone and Putin
proposed to postpone his visit until November. This means that the
Russian president decided to respect the parity and hold regional visits
to Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia in November, the paper writes.

Several Armenian media, citing their sources, report the visit to
Armenia by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was originally said
to have been scheduled for mid-September, will take place in late
October or early November.
The Russian leader’s visit was first announced in the summer by the
director of the CIS Institute Konstantin Zatulin, who said that Putin
will attend Collective Security Treaty Organization exercises in Armenia
held in September. The Kremlin had neither denied nor confirmed that
information, leaving Armenian experts guessing afterwards why Putin did
not come to Armenia. Now the discussion is centered around the entourage of President Putin
on his possible visit to Armenia as well as what he will actually be
bringing to Armenia. The price of natural gas remains high on the agenda
of Armenian-Russian talks. Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov said recently that his country
was asked to join the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan
and offered as a “reward” a reduction of natural gas prices down to $160
per cubic meter. Otherwise, the price of this fuel would fluctuate
around $440. Azarov said that Russia could thus lose its largest buyer
of gas; he did not agree that his country should join the Customs Union.One should assume that the same proposal will be made to Armenia.
Armenia’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Armen Movsisyan
acknowledged that the negotiations on the gas price with Russia are
still continuing. And experts believe that Russia will offer to maintain
or even reduce prices for Armenia if the latter agrees to integrate
with the Eurasian Community, a new integration process in the
post-Soviet space initiated by the Russian president and expected to get
its flesh and bones by 2015.Another issue that is almost certainly going to be discussed during
Putin’s likely Yerevan meetings will be the upcoming elections in
Armenia. Soon it will be the stage of nomination of candidates for
president in Armenia, and the Kremlin has not yet expressed its
preference on the candidates. In Armenia, the guessing game is around
whether Putin will extend his support to the incumbent president, Serzh
Sargsyan, or will back Robert Kocharyan, the former president.The Haykakan Zhamanak daily writes that Putin will bring with him to
Armenia Karen Karapetyan, a former mayor of Yerevan and ex-CEO of
ArmRosgazprom, a Russian-Armenian joint venture distributing natural gas
in Armenia. At present, Karapetyan is deputy manager of Gazprombank in
Moscow. The Russia-connected top manager is tipped as a possible prime
minister in Armenia, and the paper assumes it is the prime minister’s
post and not that of president that Putin will be talking about during
his visit to Armenia. However, there is still one remarkable circumstance that could change
everything. On October 10 Putin unexpectedly canceled his visit to
Turkey, which was originally scheduled for October 14-15. The very next
day Turkey intercepted a Syrian civilian aircraft operating a flight
from Moscow to Damascus. Turkish air force jets made the Syrian plane
land to be searched. Ankara insists component parts for prohibited
weapons were found on board the civil aircraft. Experts rushed to describe the incident as a sign of damaged relations
between Turkey and Russia, which have been developing quite
incrementally of late. The possible reason for the souring relations is
the escalating situation around Syria and Turkey’s possible invasion of
this embattled country. In Yerevan there has been a traditional concern
that well-developing Russo-Turkish relations could come at the expense
of Armenia. In particular, Russia, on the initiative of Turkey, could
insist on the return of some territories around Karabakh to Azerbaijan,
it does not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh, has not contributed to the
opening of an airport in Stepanakert, and so on.The Turkish factor may also be crucial in what Putin offers to Armenia.
In particular, Russia may want to strengthen its military base in
Armenia that guards the border with Turkey. Whether the allied relations between Yerevan and Moscow grow in the
future will also depend on the further course of the Russia-Turkey row.
If things around Syria develop according to their recent scenario,
Turkey is likely to invade the Middle Eastern country, which will
ultimately damage its ties with Moscow and create a new international
situation for Yerevan.

Armenia has become object of battle between US and Russia – opposition member

The Civilitas Foundation founder, former
FM, and Prosperous Armenia Party MP Vartan Oskanian’s prosecution was
permitted by the United States itself, Karabakh Committee member Ashot
Manucharyan stated during a press conference on Thursday. He
noted that he does not believe the US ambassador is unable to prevent a
persecution against a person in Armenia. “That is, they are not against
[it] for the most part. Armenia has become an object of battle between
the US and Russia, and the primary lever to dominate over Armenia is the
presidential chair. Today, Russia is infuriated because they are
attempting to snatch its influence in Armenia away from it, and, under
such condition, the Russian side is capable of many things,” Manucharyan
said.

According to him, this is why the US is trying to
weaken and neutralize Russia’s main weapon with such small strikes.
“Armenia’s ruling ‘regime’ begins persecuting a protected man, who is
the second person of the Prosperous Armenia Party. At that time the
party’s first person disappears while its remaining members, who used to
hold state positions and make money unlawfully, begin contemplating as
to what they would do with them if they are launching such actions
against a man who is protected to such [high] level. Thus, the entire
‘Russian system’ is being neutralized by the actions against Oskanian,”
he noted.

And in response to the query as to whether Oskanian’s
nomination for next year’s presidential elections is real, Ashot
Manucharyan said it would be better to pose this question to the Russian
and US ambassadors because, according to him, they are the ones who
decide which role is preferred for Oskanian to play: a presidential
candidate, or a distressed prisoner?As Armenian News-NEWS.am
informed earlier, the National Security Service (NSS) Department of
Investigation has brought formal charges Monday against Vartan Oskanian.

To
note, on October 2 the National Assembly voted—by 64 ballots for, six
against, and with one invalid vote—in favor of Prosecutor General’s
petition to include Vartan Oskanian as a defendant in a criminal
lawsuit. A total of 71 MPs participated in the voting. On May 25
NSS Department of Investigation had filed a criminal lawsuit on charges
of money laundering with respect to The Civilitas Foundation.

The presence of Russophobic sentiment in Armenia is already not a
secret. The secret for the majority of Armenian society, including its
Russophobic part, is the real causes of these trends in the country,
which is considered an age-old partner and friend of the Russian people.
It should be recognized that there is still some discontent with
individual elements of Russian policy in Armenia and in the South
Caucasus, as well as with the policies of any other country. However, in
the case of Russia, these elements are artificially inflated and heated
by the forces of pro-Western orientation. These forces are mainly
funded by USAid and similar institutions, government organizations and
political forces. However, it is believed that the presence of
anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia is being heated at the official
level...

Another catalyst of increasing Russophobia in
Armenia was the statement by the governor of Krasnodar Territory
Alexander Tkachev on establishing a "Cossack police" in the region.
Tkachev substantiated the emergence of such a new structure in such a
way: Stavropol isn't coping with the role of a filter "sifting
Caucasians from Kubans." Some overseas-funded Armenian information
resources of appropriate orientation immediately came to the paradoxical
conclusion that the Cossack police would actually be engaged in the
forcible deportation of the Caucasian peoples and, first of all, for
some reason, the Armenians from Krasnodar Territory. In reality, only a
mad man could imagine that the Cossack police would clean out Armenians
from Krasnodar Territory and primarily from Sochi, where the number of
Armenians amounts to about half the population. There is no need to be a
genius to understand that the implementation of xenophobic attitudes in
multi-ethnic and multi-religious Russia would do harm to its federal
structure. However, somebody in Armenia does not want to understand it
by continuing to disturb the minds of citizens, mostly living on
transfers, which certainly do not come from overseas.

The
reason for the talk "about the imminent loss of Armenia's independence,"
was the idea of ​​Vladimir Putin of the creation of the Eurasian Union.
The idea led to intense discourse in post-Soviet space - some felt
nostalgia and hope, others felt fear. In general, it seems that any idea
of ​​integration with Russia will be welcomed in Armenia, traditionally
and rightly considered to be a pro-Russian country. However, there are
people who see the Eurasian Union and even its forerunner, the Customs
Union, as a direct threat to the independence of Armenia. For some
reason they do not see such a threat in the opening of the border,
initiated by the U. S., with those who committed the genocide of the
Armenians. Thus the main reproach against Russia remains its alleged
lack of interest in a just settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

However,
these criticisms of Moscow sound not only in Yerevan but also in Baku.
And if the Armenians accuse Moscow of selling weapons to Azerbaijan, the
peak of which was the sale of an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system in
2010, Baku is unhappy that Russia not only supplies weaponry to Armenia
but makes a discount. These pro-Western Armenians somehow do not see
this, as well as they do not want to see Russian efforts to reach a
compromise in the Karabakh conflict. Moscow has a military base in
Gyumri and supplies Armenia, as a CSTO member, weapons at domestic
prices. The majority of Armenians are sincerely and deeply grateful for
this. However, there are people complaining that Yerevan bears all the
expenses for the maintenance of the Russian 102nd military base,
according to the intergovernmental agreement for a period of 49 years.
The same people, oblivious to the fact that the stay of the Russian base
in Armenia fits the interests of Armenia, because it protects its
external borders, and Russia is spending huge amounts of money on it,
demand the withdrawal of the base as a "threat to the sovereignty of
Armenia."

Today some politicians in Yerevan, having
forgotten our history, including the latest, and their own conscience,
do not want to remember the indisputable fact that it was the terrible
cries of Moscow that stopped an imminent Turkish invasion of Armenia.
And there is no doubt that the Kremlin today is interested in preserving
the independence of Armenia, while the U.S. and the West, in the best
case, can locate "peacekeepers" on the front line in Karabakh, which is
certainly more likely to look in the direction of the south, that is, to
Iran, than to engage in the preservation of peace in the South
Caucasus. Not only Russia, but also any other state, and the U.S. in the
first place, determining its priorities in a given region, is guided by
its own national interests, and only after that - the interests of
"brotherly states". And this is quite normal and accepted by people who
have at least a remote idea about politics. However, given that a large
part of the population has no idea of ​​this, opponents of Russian
influence in Armenia managed to exploit even a military parade dedicated
to the Independence Day of the Republic, which took place a year ago in
Yerevan. The passage of Russian troops from Gyumri under a Russian flag
caused rejection on the part of pro-American youth. Russian
participation in the parade of the Armenian army was seen not as a
political move to a certain direction, but as another manifestation of
the "imperial ambitions" of Russia. Moreover, the protest meeting
against the participation of Russian troops in the parade was dismissed
by police only the next day.

The economy is also widely
discussed. Recently, there were a lot of discussions in the media on the
question of negotiations between Russia and Armenia on the increase in
the price of natural gas supplied by Russia. According to replicated
pro-Western media reports, from October 1, 2012, Russia plans to raise
the price of gas from 180 to 280 dollars per thousand cubic meters. And
from January 1, 2013, Russia will set the price of gas at about 380
dollars. Despite the lack of official statements related to the increase
of the price of Russian gas for Armenia both from Yerevan and from
Moscow, the very prospect of higher prices for the Armenian economy,
which is not in the best position, also boosts the injection of
anti-Russian sentiment in the country. It should not be forgotten that,
even in case of a price of 380 dollars, the population of the country
today with the price of about 180 dollars gets the gas at a price of 132
drams, that is, taking into account maintenance fees, it is up to
400-420 dollars per thousand cubic meters. In these conditions,
pro-Western Armenians should have accused not Russia but their own
government or "Armrosgazprom" for such pricing.

One of the
first factors which the anti-Russian forces in Armenia adopted was a
project of the "debt-for-enterprises", realized during Robert
Kocharyan's presidency, when in exchange for repayment of the Armenian
foreign debt of 100 million dollars Russia received several businesses
and the Hrazdan thermal power plant, which produced almost half of the
country's electricity. The fact of the transaction did not shock anyone,
because the above-mentioned companies were idle. However, Armenia hoped
that the companies which the Russians got would make money, but most of
them remained idle. After that some forces asked the following
question: why, for example, did Moscow write off a hundred times more
debt of $10 billion to Syria, but it did not write off the Armenian
debt?

Many do not like the excessive influence of Moscow
on local domestic life. However, geopolitics and economics just do not
leave other options in Armenia, which, however, does not prevent the
largely pro-Western opposition with no dividend on the proximity to
Moscow from always looking around in search of other strategic partners.
This could be considered a problem of the Armenian opposition. However,
the problem is mostly still a Russian one, because Moscow has
traditionally worked with the current government of the important
countries, not maintaining contact with the opposition, as the West
does.

As a result, this breach is used by geopolitical
rivals of Russia, driving a wedge between Yerevan and Moscow. From the
point of view of the history of Armenian-Russian relations, Armenia may
be an important strategic area for Russia only when the authorities are
weak, because with a strong government Armenia will seek more
independence, and this is not beneficial for Russia. However, the same
can be said about the West. There is a version according to which
President Putin is trying to increase the importance of Armenia,
exchanging Serzh Sargsyan for Robert Kocharyan, who is not sufficiently
popular in Armenia. Against this background, the preferred and
non-alternative candidate for the U.S. is Serzh Sargsyan who has
reportedly already started a "renovation" of Armenia. In this version,
the anti-Russian wave rises in Armenia with the participation of
official structures. Thus, by simulating the growth of anti-Russian
sentiment, the ruling force tends to gain time and not to give the
pro-Western opposition a chance in the domestic political struggle.

In
general, there has always been anti-Russian sentiment within the
statistical error in Armenia. But if in the first years of independence
they were local in nature, not appearing in the media, and in general
people were quite pro-Russian, nowadays the situation is different. The
rejection of Russian policy in the Caucasus did not emerge suddenly; it
proceeded step by step, at least in the last 10 years. However, people
who are trying to drive a wedge in Armenian-Russian relations do not
represent the whole Armenian people. Even recent Gallup polls show that
three-quarters of the population of Armenia still view Russia
positively. Unfortunately, there is no merit on the part of the Russian
embassy in this case, since its public diplomacy activities, if they
exist, are extremely subtle. However, the recent upheavals and increased
funding of "Rossotrudnichestvo" demonstrate that Moscow is also
seriously thinking about the effect and potential use of "soft power",
at least in the countries of the CIS. For Armenia, not interested in
becoming a second Georgia, this is very handy.

Tigran Sargsyan: Time to think about closer inter-regional cooperation between Armenia and Russia

The second Armenian-Russian inter-regional forum kicked off in
Yerevan today. The opening ceremony was attended by Prime Minister
Tigran Sargsyan and the Russian co-chair of the Armenian-Russian
Intergovernmental Commission Maxim Sokolov. Welcoming the participants of the forum, the Prime Minister voiced
hope that the it will promote the development of economic and
humanitarian ties between the two countries and elaboration of new
initiatives.

“The relations between Armenia and Russia are of strategic nature.
Political and economic dialogue has been established on all levels of
state governance. Time has come for closer inter-regional cooperation,”
Tigran Sargsyan said.

“I think we have much to learn from each other. The dialogue
between the regional authorities of the two countries can suggest the
mechanisms that will contribute to the development of regions. We must
think about the development of inter-regional cooperation in different
directions. We must not only maintain, but also reinforce the bilateral
information space, consider the creation of the database of the supply
and demand of the regional markets, present corresponding business
programs,” he added.

Speaking about the proportionate development of regions, the Prime
Minister said one of the priorities of the Armenian government is the
development of regional infrastructures – roads, water supply systems,
logistic and educational centers.

“We are making efforts to have the quality of life in rural
regions correspond to that in urban areas. For that purpose we have
started implementing a special programs to create regional development
programs. A Techno Park has been established in Gyumri, the next will be
opened in Vanadzor, a financial and educational center is being
constructed in Dilijan,” the Prime Minister said.

The forum features representatives of central and regional authorities, NGOs and business circles of the two countries.

Armenian-Russian Tourism Campaign to reveal new tourism resources of Armenia

The Russian-Armenian joint Tourism
Campaign will contribute to the development of the field of tourism in
Armenia. As reported by the Deputy Minister of Economy of the Republic
of Armenia Ara Petrosyan at the press conference held on September 27,
the Tourism Campaign, to be held from September 30 to October 9, aimed
at revealing the new tourism resources of Armenia.

The Deputy Minister highlighted the efforts of the state of keeping
Armenia in the tourism focus. "The country works to create favorable
environment for the development of the field of tourism", - stated Ara
Petrosyan, as reported by Armenpress. According to him, the
International Tourism Conference to be held on October 18-19 in Armenia
will as well contribute to the growth of interest in the field.

The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian
Federation to Armenia Vyacheslav Kovalenko highly evaluated the tourism
potential of Armenia, emphasizing the importance of the Campaign. "It is
a very good and important start for the inflow of tourists to Armenia.
The scientists and aspirants, involved in the Campaign, will contribute
to the increase in the recognition of Armenia", - said the
Ambassador. Vyacheslav Kovalenko highlighted as well the high level of
interest of the journalists towards the Campaign.

The Director of the Armenian Tourism Institute Robert Minasyan stated
about the attractiveness of Armenia for tourists. "Our main objective
is to create a united tourism zone between Armenia and Russia", - said
Robert Minasyan. The Armenian-Russian Scientific Tourism Campaign is to be held on the
occasion of the 20th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between
Armenia and Russia. The Campaign will launch from the city of Yerevan
and will involve Gyumri, Dilijan, Sevan, Goris, Kapan, Meghri, Oshakan
and Etchmiadzin cities.The diplomatic relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation have been established on April 3 1992.

Armenia and Russia will continue
cooperation in cultural spheres for future. On October 12 in the
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia was signed “The Program
for Cooperation of Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia and
Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for 2012-2015”, that aims
the regulation of Armenian-Russian cultural relation for the period
mentioned.

As reports “Armenpress” the document was signed by Minister of
Culture of the Republic of Armenia Hasmik Poghosyan and Deputy Minister
of Culture of Russian Federation Andrey Bousigin. The program of
cooperation includes 18 articles regulating Armenian-Russian relations
in a number of cultural spheres. As Minister of Culture of the Republic
of Armenia mentioned this is a clear program of activities. In
accordance with the program the sides will support the exchange of
soloists and collectives, international festivals and contests in both
countries. This will help to make favorable conditions for cooperation
in the spheres of fine arts, stage craft, cinematography, libraries and
museums, design, amateur talent activities, circus, objects of
historical and cultural heritage and national craft.

Minister of Culture of the Republic of Armenia said:
“Notwithstanding, one thing is of an extraordinary importance for me,
that both sides will continue supporting qualification and
requalification procedures of the cadres”. Minister of Culture of
Russian Federation stressed good relations between Armenian and Russian
nations and administrative bodies and the importance of development of
the cooperation between our countries.

Armenian National Security Council
Secretary Arthur Baghdasaryan, who is in Moscow on a working visit, on
Tuesday met with Russian Federation (RF) Security Council Secretary
Nikolai Patrushev. Following their private talk, meeting of the
Armenian and RF security councils’ representatives was held, during
which they exchanged views on the current situation in the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) zone as well as on regional and
international security. As a result of the talks, Baghdasaryan and
Patrushev signed a protocol, whereby the arrangements were specified.

On
the same day, Arthur Baghdasaryan met with Vladimir Puchkov, the RF
Minister of Emergency Situations. As a result of this meeting, the
parties signed the protocol on the intentions to establish a joint
humanitarian center in Armenia. Also, the Armenian National
Security Council Secretary got together with CSTO Secretary General
Nikolay Bordyuzha. This meting was followed by a roundtable discussion
under the theme “The Republic of Armenia’s activities within the
framework of the CSTO,” during which the attendees examined the
interaction as well as the avenues to improve the organization’s
activities. As a result of the meeting with Bordyuzha and the aforesaid
roundtable, a protocol with several arrangements was signed.

In
addition, Arthur Baghdasaryan met with Sergei Ivanov, the Chief of Staff
of the RF Presidential Administration. The interlocutors discussed the
military partnership between Armenia and Russia, and reflected on the
implementation of the arrangements that were made during Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan’s and RF President Vladimir Putin’s last
meeting.

Armenia has been and remains Russia’s reliable ally, Russian President
Vladimir Putin wrote in his message of greeting to the participants and
guests of the second convention of the World Armenian Congress (WAC)
that kicked off in Yerevan earlier today. “Russians and Armenians have been united by ties of friendship, mutual
respect and spiritual affinity for many a century now,” said the Russian
leader, according to the Voice of Russia quoting the press agency TASS.
“Bilateral relations have been successfully developing on the basis of
good traditions and have reached the level of strategic partnership.”The Russian president reportedly wished the delegates “from the bottom
of his heart” fruitful work and success, and wished the fraternal people
of Armenia well-being and prosperity. The WAC, founded in 2003, is an organization led by affluent
Russian-Armenian businessman Ara Abrahamyan. Its declared objective is
to strengthen relations between Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora.

Russia
will supply gas to
Armenia on a privileged cost that will be rather cheap. As “Armenpress”
reports, this was announced by the minister of Energy and Natural
Resources of Armenia Armen Movsisyan at the end of the session of
intergovernmental committee, but he refused to tell what exact price he
meant. The minister mentioned the following: “We are still negotiating
about the price for gas. There will be special privileged price for
Armenia, but the precise cost will be clear only after the end of the
negotiations. Unlike other countries we will buy gas for very cheap
prices.” According to him after the final cost is fixed the government
will start thinking about subsidizing needy classes. Current gas price
for Armenia is 180 USD for 1000 cubic metre. Speaking about the new
energy station Movsisyan mentioned that
presently they are working on the development of new financial schemes.

Gazprombank vice president may become candidate for president of Armenia

Karen Karapetyan, former Mayor of Yerevan and First Vice President of
Gazprombank, may become a candidate for President of Armenia in 2013, News Armenia reports. Prosperous
Armenia and the Armenian National Congress may for a consensus around
the official. Russia may also encourage Karapetyan to go ahead. Karen
Karapetyan resigned as the Yerevan Mayor on October 28, 2011, staying
in office less than a year. He used to be the Director General of
ArmRosgazprom, the monopolist of gas distribution in Armenia.

A Kremlin-friendly businessman leading the largest Armenian community
organization in Russia on Monday voiced support for President Serzh
Sargsyan’s plans to win a second term in office in an upcoming
presidential election. Ara Abrahamyan said the governing body of his Moscow-based World
Armenian Congress (WAC) officially endorsed Sargsyan’s reelection at a
weekend meeting in Yerevan.“We have no other [presidential] candidates yet. Nobody has nominated
[their candidacy,]” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am)
during a WAC congress in Yerevan. Asked whether he and his group have considered backing an opposition
candidate, Abrahamyan said, “You can’t become president in two months.
You need a serious preparation for becoming president.”The tycoon added that the WAC decided to endorse the incumbent president
in recognition of his policy on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, pursuit
of greater international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide and
efforts to bolster Armenia’s ties with its worldwide Diaspora. He
admitted that many Armenians are dissatisfied with their government’s
socioeconomic track record but said Sargsyan does not have a “magic
wand” to rapidly improve their plight.Incidentally, Sargsyan attended and delivered a speech at the WAC
congress on Monday. He again stressed the Diaspora’s importance to the
country. The WAC was set up in 2003 as an offshoot of Abrahamyan’s Union of
Armenians of Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin personally
attended the WAP’s founding congress in Moscow to indicate his support
for the Armenian-born tycoon’s attempt to create a global pan-Armenian
structure.The Armenian government’s reaction to the initiative was less than
enthusiastic, with then President Robert Kocharyan openly expressing
misgivings about the idea of putting all major Diaspora communities
under a single umbrella structure. Leading Armenian organizations in the
United States and Western Europe have also viewed the WAC with
suspicion.Abrahamyan announced on Monday that the WAC has decided to move its
headquarters from Moscow to Yerevan in order to end Diaspora allegations
that the group is furthering the Kremlin’s agenda.

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov emphasized the “strategic
significance” of his country’s relations with Armenia after meeting
Armenian leaders and watching military exercises held by the Russian-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) near Yerevan on
Wednesday. Serdyukov joined President Serzh Sarkisian as well as his Armenian
and Belarusian counterparts in monitoring the concluding phase of the
five-day maneuvers held at the Armenian army’s Marshal Bagramian
training ground. Kazakhstan’s top army general also arrived in Armenia
on the occasion.

They
looked on as about 2,000 soldiers from Armenia, Russia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan simulated a joint operation
against imaginary “illegal armed formations” invading a CSTO member
state. The CSTO troops were backed up by tanks, armored vehicles,
artillery systems, helicopter gunships and warplanes firing live rounds.
The drills also involved unmanned aircraft designed and manufactured
in Armenia. The Krunk drones were first demonstrated by the Armenian
military during a September 2011 parade in Yerevan.

Serdyukov praised the course of the war games when he held talks with
Sarkisian later in the day. The Armenian president’s press office said
they also discussed Russian-Armenian military ties and security
“challenges” facing the region. Serdyukov said Russian-Armenian relations are currently “at the
highest level” and are strategically important to both nations after a
separate meeting with Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian. The meeting
focused on what the two men called a “reorganization” of Russian troops
stationed in Armenia.

“We have had quite good meetings today during which we discussed a
broad range of issues related to the 102nd Russian military base
stationed in Armenia and its reorganization taking place within the
framework of a reform of Russia’s Armed Forces,” Serdyukov told
journalists. “We are transferring about 10 facilities to the Armenian side,” he
said without elaborating. “We also discussed the issue of
material-technical supplies to the base and our relationships in that
regard.”

The Russian minister appeared to refer to a redeployment of Russian
army units in Armenia, which began in early 2011. In an apparently
related development, the Russian military announced in June that it will
double this year the number of its soldiers serving at the Soviet-era
base headquartered in Gyumri on a contractual basis. It is still not
clear if the total number of its military personnel will change as a
result.

The Russian base is believed to have between 4,000 and 5,000 troops.
It is equipped with hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles and artillery
systems as well as sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missiles and a
squadron of MiG-29 fighter jets. A Russian-Armenian agreement signed in 2010 extended the Russian
military presence in the South Caucasus nation by 24 years, until 2044,
and upgraded its security mission. It also committed the Russians to
helping the Armenian military obtain “modern and compatible weaponry and
(special) military hardware.”

The deployment of the 102nd
Russian military base in Gyumri remains the subject of heated debate.
Some believe that that the Russian base guarantees security for Armenia,
while some are convinced that the base threatens the sovereignty of the
country. Pravda.Ru talked to the Vice President of the Academy of
Geopolitical Issues Konstantin Sivkov to get some clarity on the
situation."Turkey has an overwhelming military superiority
in the region, and Russia is unlikely to be able (in military terms) to
stop the advance of the Turkish troops. However, in case of an attack
on Armenia, Turkey would declare a war on Russia as well. The 102nd
Russian military base in Gyumri has more of a geopolitical significance
rather than military. Do you agree with this statement?"

"Any military base located outside of
Russia is a guarantee that in the event of military action against any
such country, Russia will enter the conflict on the side of that
country. Otherwise, there would be no military bases deployed there.
This is clear. If Turkey attacks Armenia, it will be treated as an
attack on Russia. Russia would fight on Armenia's side with all its
might. If necessary, Russia could use nuclear weapons against Turkey,
both tactical, and if need be, strategic. This is defined in the
military doctrine of the Russian Federation. Armenia is fully protected
with the Russian umbrella of both conventional forces as well as
strategic nuclear forces.""Russia spent a significant
amount of money on Gabala radar station (RS) in Azerbaijan, as well as
its military bases in Central Asia. There are sales of Russian weapons,
including the offensive ones, to Azerbaijan. Currently, Armenia and
Azerbaijan have the same sore issue - Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Why is
Armenia not charging rent for the Russian base?""This is
because Russia and Armenia are allies. They have no commercial
relationship like the one between Azerbaijan and Russia. Russia will not
fight for Azerbaijan, but will fight for Armenia. Armenia is part of
the overall defense of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO). Armenia cannot maintain effective means of defense because it's
quite expensive. The presence in the country of the Russian Federation
base equipped with anti-aircraft missile systems S-300 and MiG-29 and
able to provide a reliable defense against threats to Armenia of a
certain scale, that is, something that can be fought off with their own
forces and resources. In case of a more serious threat, additional
forces and air defense and fighter aircraft may be redeployed there.

"The question of who needs the base
more - Russia or Armenia - often turns into a pointless debate about
dependence. Given the strained relations between Turkey and Armenia, the
Karabakh conflict and open support that Ankara provides to Baku in this
conflict, the 102nd Russian base plays an important role in
ensuring the safety of Armenia. However, the U.S. has reasons behind the
encouragement of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations with the
help of Zurich protocols. The goal is to eliminate Armenia's interest in
the presence of a Russian military base on its territory. What do you
think about it?""The Russian military base in Armenia is
not just for defense from Turkey. As I mentioned earlier, at the moment
there is only one front - the conflict with Azerbaijan. To some extent,
NATO military may present some risk for Armenia. The presence of the
Russian military base in Armenia is equally convenient for both sides.
Russia wants to push the frontiers of air capture as far from its
borders as possible. In turn, Armenia is interested in protecting its
sovereignty. The presence of the Russian military base in Armenia
implies protection of the interests of this country. If some Armenians
serve in the Russian army, the base is a natural element of the economic
system in Armenia and aids in the consolidation and development of the
economy of the country.

"Do you think the presence of the Russian military base in Armenia is a threat to its sovereignty?"

"This position is likely shared by
Dashnak Armenian nationalists who in the beginning of the last century
called for sovereignty and independence of Armenia. But such a small
country like Armenia cannot exist without the patronage of major powers.
If Russia leaves Armenia, the United States will come back. This is the
only possible solution. The mere presence of the Russian military base
is a guarantee of the sovereignty of Armenia. Moreover, the composition
and size of the military base, and its primary task of defense, rule out
the possibility of any significant impact on the internal political
life of Armenia. Fighter jets can in no way affect the political life of
this country."

Russia is installing an advanced anti-aircraft missile system in its
southern military region in reaction to Turkey’s deployment of a NATO
missile system, Press TV reported citing the Turkish daily
Hurriyet.Russian Col. Igor Gorbul said the army will complete the
installation of S-400 anti-aircraft missiles by the end of this year. Gorbul also stated that the new missiles can destroy ultra-stratospheric and ballistic missiles and all types of airplanes. NATO’s missile system has been established in Turkey’s East Anatolia region. The Hurriyet report comes several days after Turkish fighter jets
forced a Syrian passenger plane heading to Damascus from Moscow to land
in the capital Ankara.

A military expert did not rule out the possibility for deployment of Russia’s S-400 missiles in Armenia. “Deployment of Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft missiles in Armenia seems
quite logical, considering current developments in Iran, as well as
military partnership between Yerevan and Moscow,” David Jamalyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry commented on the possibility for deployment of Russia’s S-400 missiles in Armenia. Considering the lack of Russia’s land frontier with
Turkey, it cannot be ruled out that the missiles will be deployed in the
territory of Armenia, where Russia’s 102nd military base is stationed. As the Ministry’s spokesman Artsrun Hovhannesyan told PanARMENIAN.Net
“noting can be ruled out at the moment. With rearmament of the Russian
military base in progress, renewal of anti-aircraft missile system
might also be expected. However, we’re not sure as to the specific
systems to be deployed.”

The disgraceful firing of Radio Liberty’s
loyal Moscow staff on September 20 and 21 is the latest chapter in the
Obama’s Administration’s Russia policy retreat, also known as the “reset.” Forty-one dedicated and professional reporters with deep knowledge
of Russia—and in particular its human rights record—have been given their
marching papers by theU.S.government. Allegedly, this is because Russian media law is changing on November
10 to restrict AM broadcasting. But those who follow the Obama
Administration’s Russiapolicy will see a familiar pattern. As the
Russian government and media get more aggressive and more anti-American, theU.S. meekly retreats.

While the new Russian media law certainly does make the work of
broadcasting more challenging, it is also a fact that Radio Liberty’s
mission—to broadcast the truth and promote democracy—fits ill with
President Obama’s accommodationist Russia policy. The “reset” policy was of course launched by Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton with the presentation of a large red button to Russian
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov during her first year in office. This silly
gimmick proved prophetic of the ineptitude of the policy it symbolizes. Under the “reset,” American national interests and those of its
friends and allies have endured one setback vis-à-vis Russia after
another:

Second was the U.S.nuclear stockpile, which the Obama Administration voluntarily cut in the process of the New START negotiations withRussia.

Then followed the withdrawal of U.S.support for NATO membership action plans for Georgia and Ukraine, which had been standing
policy under the Bush Administration.

Last spring, President Obama promised then-President Dmitry Medvedev (and was caught by an open microphone), “After my election I will have more flexibility” to negotiate nuclear cuts.

On September 20 and 21, the staff of Radio Liberty inMoscow was decimated.

On October 1, the offices of USAID
inMoscow were closed without a peep of protests due to pressure from
the Russian government, which accused theU.S. of domestic political
interference.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty director Steven Korn attempted to defend the firings in an op-ed in yesterday’s Moscow Times.
“This is not a calamity,” he wrote, which certainly is not the view of
the fired journalists. “On the contrary, we see this as an opportunity
to improve and strengthen Radio Svoboda and to accelerate our plans to
move to digital platforms.” This simply does not pass the smell test,
especially as the entire digital team of theMoscow office was among
those fired. U.S.national interests abroad, including our security interests,
continue to be compromised by the Obama Administration, andRussiais but
one example. The worst part is that it is being done intentionally.

Russia this week signed a contract to export $4.2 billion of weapons to Iraq — which is of special interest for two reasons. First,
it is the largest arms-export deal since Putin became the effective
ruler of Russia in 1999. Second, it marks Russia’s return as a top
supplier of weapons to Iraq — a position lost in 2003 with the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein, after Putin had opposed the liberation of Iraq and
tried to help Saddam cling to power. Nor is Russia’s dramatic
return to Iraq confined to the arms bazaar. Russian energy companies are
also making a comeback, seeking a share of Iraq’s massive oil reserves
while US companies play reluctant debutante.

His take on Obama’s ‘reset’ button? Putin, here clowning at a Moscow
meeting, is helping fill the power vacuum left by US global withdrawal. Oil and gas play a key role in Putin’s strategy for restoring
Russia’s position as a major power, if not a superpower as in the days
of the Soviet Union. The European Union, China and Japan heavily depend
on energy imports from the Caspian Basin and the Persian Gulf, not to
mention Russia itself. By establishing itself as the principal player in
that vital region, Russia would have a crucial card to play in any
future big-power contest. To that end, Russia is strengthening ties with the Islamic Republic in Iran and helping the beleaguered Assad regime in Syria.

Westward,
Russia has regained much of its lost influence in Ukraine, a vital link
in gas transit to European markets. Over the past four years,
pro-Russian parties in Ukraine have won control of most levers of power.
The pro-West opposition leader, former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko,
has ended up in prison. Putin has worked hard these past four
years to recapture positions that Russia lost when the Soviet empire
disintegrated. Despite occasional hitches, the despotic regime of
President Alexander Loukachenko in Belorussia is now effectively in the
Russian orbit. (Putin has even proposed a pan-Slavic Union of Russia,
Belorussia and Ukraine.)

Southward, Putin invaded Georgia,
annexing 20 percent of its territory in the two enclaves of Abkhazia and
South Ossetia. And this month a pro-Moscow coalition led by Bidzina
Ivanishvili, a billionaire linked to the euphemistically labeled
“Russian business elite,” won the presidency, replacing the pro-American
Mikheil Saakashvili. South of Georgia, Putin (with Iranian help)
has managed to bully tiny Armenia back into the fold. He is now raising
pressure on Azerbaijan, which (thanks to links with Turkey) still
pursues a pro-West policy. Moscow is also making a comeback in
Central Asia. Last month, the Russian army orchestrated a series of
military exercises with units from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan. Russia has held similar exercises with China and Kazakhstan,
ostensibly as part of a counterinsurgency strategy.

Everywhere,
Russian advances have been facilitated by what is perceived in the
region as a strategic retreat by the United States under President
Obama. Ukraine and Georgia have all but abandoned their efforts
to join the European Union and/or NATO. The Central Asian republics have
frozen joint projects with NATO that date to the 1990s. And
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have terminated accords that let the US use
facilities there to supply NATO forces in Afghanistan — increasing
American dependence on problematic routes through Russia and Pakistan. The
perceived “American retreat” started with the Obama administration’s
rather comical “reset” offer in 2009. Criticizing President George W.
Bush’s “cowboy diplomacy,” the Obama administration abandoned the
missile-defense project slated to be sited in Poland and the Czech
Republic. Putin said he appreciated the move — but offered no
concessions in return.

Instead, he saw it as a signal to
intensify Russian efforts to force the United States out of positions
gained in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia since the end
of the Cold War. In the years since, signs of an American retreat
have multiplied. In Iraq, Obama gave the impression that his sole wish
was to walk away and shut the door behind him. Much of the influence
that the US had gained by liberating Iraq and fighting to help it create
a new political system has evaporated. Intent on depicting Iraq
as a nightmare that is best forgotten, Obama has even excluded Iraq from
Arab-American efforts to reshape the region in the wake of the Arab
Spring upheavals. Putin is no doubt watching the US presidential
campaign with keen interest. A second Obama term would offer the Russian
strongman four more years to complete his grand imperial design to
force Russia’s near and far neighbors into line by bribing, bullying
and, when necessary, invading them.

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Mission statement

About Me

I'm not here to make friends nor am I here to talk about girls, sports, cars or music. I'm here to have an impact on the minds of young, Anglophone Armenians. I want to expose visitors to this blog to an alternative perspective on Armenology, Christianity, history and the most important yet least understood topic on earth - geopolitics. Armenians need to be proud of the fact that their ancient homeland is the origin of human civilization. Armenians need to realize that Christ was not the Jewish Messiah. Armenians must understand that Armenia belongs within Russia's orbit. I have been closely observing Russia since Vladimir Putin's rise to power. Putin is one of the greatest political figures in history. With the Anglo-American-Zionist global establishment's toxic effects all around us, Putin's Russia has risen to become the last hope for the traditional nation-state and European civilization. The Caucasus is a violent and unforgiving place. Armenia's survival as a nation in the south Caucasus is only made possible by the presence of a strong Russia within the region. Hail Russia - the last front against Western imperialism, Globalism, Zionism, Islamic extremism and pan-Turkism.